Jaded Perspectives

Back when I was active in the English Visual Novel Development circles, one of the hottest topics for discussion that never sat well with me was the use of " narrative hooks. " Basically, it is your job as a writer to figuratively "hook" the audience's attention from the very start so that they will continue to read your story. Additionally, proponents of the narrative hook from the EVN Circles, would often claim that it is your fault as a writer if your reader loses interest in your work and doesn't give it a chance to get to the plot twist or climax. At that time  (and at this time still), I thought that it was a very consumerist approach towards literature and storytelling. They were basically saying that you have to give the readers what they want or you are a failure as a writer. This was really counter-intuitive for me because I had personally grown up around and come to love a lot of stories that never relied on hooks. There were times when I'd

Greetings! It's Valentine's day today so let's forego the usual biting article aimed at HayaNagi haters. For today, I have a special HayaNagi AMV all ready. I had to use veoh because youtube's copyright bot seems to automatically flag the video. Well, whatevers, here you go~ Watch Hayate x Nagi - Beautiful In White in Anime   |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com In other news, Hata-sensei's new series, Tonikaku Kawaii starts today. I don't think I'll be following it, but you can give it a shot if you like. If you can't read Japanese, I'm sure some scanlators will pick it up soon. Fanart Corner Naturally, I have some Valentine's Day fanart for today. Here ya go~ and see you next week for sure.

First, a little heads up that Hata's new manga is starting and it's called Tonikaku Kawaii (cute anyway). LOL -- that title is so Hata. With that said, I haven't even touched Ad Astra per Aspera, so I dunno how I feel about that. MC kinda looks like a sharper faced Hina, so some of you might like that. If there was ever a dark horse in the series whom I feared might eventually win Hayate's heart, it would have to be Izumi Segawa. After all, Hata has always made sure to remind the audience that Izumi is a bit different from the other two of the student council trio, Miki and Risa. While the two have rather indistinct archetypes and very little in terms of character development, Izumi has always been around and has had her moments with Hayate -- even if it was just to bide time until the next big event in the development of the main story triggers. In fact, Izumi has even had her own mini Segawa arc that had Hayate fighting the Segawa big four (actually six people